


Looking Back, Moving Forward

by Griddlebone



Category: Power Rangers Jungle Fury
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griddlebone/pseuds/Griddlebone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot had changed in ten thousand years, but Camille was nothing if not adaptable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Back, Moving Forward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



In the dark of night, Camille walked the streets of Ocean Bluff. She crept quietly through the deserted streets, avoiding the unnerving light of the streetlamps because it was easier to blend into the shadows.

The reminders of human progress sprouted up everywhere around her, with their straight lines and squared, unnatural shapes. Elsewhere, things were much as they had always been: Dai Shi plotted his schemes and charted the downfall of humankind. But here, in the heart of the human city, it was obvious that the rest of the world had altered dramatically in the past ten thousand years.

Loathe though she was to admit it, the humans had thrived since Dai Shi's imprisonment. They had built their cities and technology, chipping away at the last of the wild spaces and trying hard to tame the animals that dwelled there. The moon's light turned the city to silver, but Camille was unmoved by any beauty the buildings and pavement might have possessed. She could see, though the humans could not, how the lights of their 'civilization' hid the stars and darkened the earthshine, how the pollution from their 'progress' tainted the air with ugly smells. A night ruled by humans was a night made less beautiful.

And she should know. Ten thousand years ago, she could have looked up at a sky that glittered with more stars than she could count. Now, the stars were a mere sad speckling of light trying to penetrate an abyss.

She felt kind of like those stars, herself, fighting a losing battle against a growing darkness.

Except she had to admit, she did not think all of the changes were for the worse. As she meandered through the unfamiliar streets, the human buildings looming over her like monstrous predators ready to strike, Camille let go of some of her sadness and fear. The things that were gone could not be restored, but she had faith that Dai Shi would find a way to undo at least some of the damage the humans had done.

She smiled faintly to herself at the thought of Dai Shi, and momentarily shifted her appearance, becoming part of the night, only a bit of brick wall. Nothing at all to see for human or animal, just in case. But she was utterly alone.

Slowly, and only when she was firmly in control of her emotions again, she allowed herself to reappear. The Overlords would have been appalled, but there were some changes she would not have undone for anything, and those were the changes that time had brought to Dai Shi himself.

His other servants, and the Overlords that had so grudgingly come to the temple to train him and aid in his battle, found his new human form alarming at worst and frustrating at best. At first Camille had been as shocked as the rest of them, but over time she had grown rather fond of the new Dai Shi. His human body was undeniably pleasing to look at, and the new Dai Shi was more pleasant than the old in other ways, too.

While Camille had always loved and admired him, in the old days she had also always been beneath his notice. And when he had bothered to notice her, he had been cruel, though it had not stopped her from caring deeply for him.

But something had changed since his reappearance. It did not happen often, but now and again he would slip, and the uncaring mask would fall away. For a few precious seconds, he would be kind to her. He would not rebuke her when he would have been justified in doing so, even when she had failed him in some way. And the look in his eyes, sometimes, when he thought she wasn't looking... it was enough to catch her breath in her throat and make her heart beat fast.

She had caught one of those looks only a few hours ago. And that was what had sent her here, half-giddy and half-thoughtful, to wander where the others would not search for her. Where she would not give away the hope that was growing within her.

It might have been just her imagination, but it had felt so very real. It still felt real when she looked back on it now.

If the others found out, they would blame the changes on Jarrod, the human whose body Dai Shi had taken as his own. They would call him weak, would say that the human had some sort of control over him. They would chafe under his command, and might even abandon him and let the Pai Zhuq masters imprison him again.

Camille would not let that happen, so she kept her silence and refused to believe that this newfound kindness came from anywhere but within Dai Shi himself. Ten thousand years had changed the world itself. Why should Dai Shi remain completely unchanged?

She would never dare to think that the fleeting kindness Dai Shi had showed her came from Jarrod. The human was dead and gone, long since conquered by Dai Shi's superior spirit, as all humans would be sooner or later. Camille was certain: it was simply that his long imprisonment had finally made Dai Shi more aware of her undying loyalty and the value of even the smallest and seemingly least useful of servants. Time had opened his eyes, though he could not risk showing it. And neither could she.

But here, alone in the depths of enemy territory, she could let her guard down a little. Here, she did not think any of Dai Shi's other servants, much less those quarrelsome Overlords, would bother to spy on her. Here, she could revel in the renewed hope that Dai Shi might one day fully return her feelings of devotion, as she had dreamed for thousands of years. She could remember with joy the way it felt when he looked at her _that way_ and she realized that, for the very first time, she was appreciated, she was _wanted_.

And, unwatched, she could admit in her deepest, most secret heart, that she did not care if the one who appreciated her was Dai Shi or the human, Jarrod. It did not matter if the two were separate or, as she preferred to believe, one and the same - Dai Shi's spirit within Jarrod's body, forming one whole. It did not matter what the Masters thought of her, or how very many changes time and humanity had wrought upon the world.

The path forward would still be far from easy. Dai Shi and the Overlords still did not trust each other, and there were still the Power Rangers and the humans to contend with. But none of that mattered to Camille just now, either.

Her eyes had opened today, when she looked up suddenly and met Dai Shi's gaze and saw something new and almost tender in those eyes. She had learned that in spite of everything that had been lost, she could still be happy. And there was no one, human or otherwise, that could stop her.


End file.
